Researching Court Records

Court records can provide vital clues about someone’s past, simply provide you with the legal documentation you need to apply for a new marriage license or otherwise confirm the disposition of a case you were involved in. A court record includes any type of public document from a divorce case, criminal case or other civil case heard in a courtroom.

Why Research Court Records?

If you’ve been checking into someone’s background and see they have been arrested in the past, you’ll want to follow that information up with a court records search to determine if they were convicted and what type of sentence they were given. In addition, if you need to confirm a divorce was finalized, this is another type of court record of interest. Civil cases such as judgments and tax liens can all have court records stored in the local clerk’s office for public viewing.

What Information Is Available?

Court records can provide you with details about a court case such as case number, disposition of the case, dates of hearings and any sentencing details. If the case regards a minor citizen or is redacted due to very sensitive information that comes forth in court, the records are typically only available to the people named in the case or their direct relatives. Some local governments will require you to apply for or request court documents, and there may also be a fee to obtain these actual files.

If you are shooting in the dark and have no idea where a court case was heard or whether one exists in a person’s past, you’ll need to utilize a public records search engine such as InfoTracer.com to narrow the field of results. The ability to quickly scan through millions of public court records from across the country enables you to determine the existence and location of this information for your research purposes.